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Heat or Eat - An Expanding Crisis
Sharon Astyk, Depletion and Abundance
... While thankfully America's poor are not in the situation of the Takjiki people, it is also true that both parties are early victims of a dilemma that is likely to hit more and more of us, in both rich and poor nations - the conflict between meeting energy needs and food needs.

Thus far, biofuels have rightly drawn most of the attention in explorations of the link between energy and hunger, but they aren't the only such link. And heating energy is likely to be a particularly acute such interface, as both natural gas and oil supplies destabilize and rise in price.

Richard Heinberg's recent essay on the coming crisis over natural gas supplies that the US and Canada face www.energybulletin.net/40035.html suggests that a crisis point in heating energy could come upon us fairly quickly. The vast majority of Americans heat with natural gas, and a disruption in the Canadian supply is likely to send prices skyrocketing, and potentially, show up as actual shortages in some regions, although whether of the US or Canada is not clear

.... A recent article observed that because of global warming issues, more and more new electrical plants are turning to natural gas. Given that the North American (and many regions of the world) gas situation is quite acute, such a rush to natural gas is likely only to raise prices and push heating energy costs even higher, and possibly impact availability. www.thestar.com/Business/article/301621

It is hard not to come to the conclusion, then that we in Northern regions face a heating crisis, and probably within a few years. And since we live in a society that practices cost rationing even for the most basic needs, that means that poor people in cold places will be increasingly priced out of heating energy. Or they will be priced out of food, as they futily stop eating in order to try and keep warm.

Meanwhile, natural gas based fertilizer prices will continue to rise along with the commodity, as more and more competition for gas ensues, further boosting the price of food, and making the heat or eat problem even more acute.

And what choices do we have as an alternative? Wood heating could be a decent option in many places, although not in urban centers where particulate emissions costs would be greater than the benefits.
(12 February 2008)

Maude Barlow interview: The Growing Battle for the Right to Water
Tara Lohan, AlterNet
Maude Barlow's new book about the water crisis is a call to arms to protect a fundamental human right.
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From Chile to the Philippines to South Africa to her home country of Canada, Maude Barlow is one of a few people who truly understands the scope of the world's water woes. Her newest book, Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water, details her discoveries around the globe about our diminishing water resources, the increasing privatization trend and the grassroots groups that are fighting back against corporate theft, government mismanagement and a changing climate.

If you want to know where the water is running low (including 36 U.S. states), why we haven't been able to protect it and what we can do to ensure everyone has the right to water, Barlow's book is an essential read. It is part science, part policy and part impassioned call. And the information in Blue Covenant couldn't come from a more reliable source. Barlow is the national chairperson of the Council of Canadians and co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, which is instrumental in the international community in working for the right to water for all people.
(14 February 2008)

UN Says Soaring Prices Leave Poor Hungry
Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press
UNITED NATIONS (AP) - Many of the world's poorest people are unable to get enough food because of soaring prices partly caused by the use of food crops to produce biofuels, the head of the U.N. food agency said.

"We're seeing more people hungry and at greater numbers than before," Josette Sheeran, executive director of the Rome-based World Food Program, said in an interview Monday with The Associated Press.

Higher oil prices are contributing to steeper food prices by boosting transportation costs, and severe weather is also hitting many countries and hurting crop output, she said.

"We're seeing many people being priced out of the food markets for the first time," said Sheeran, who was at U.N. headquarters for a General Assembly debate on global warming.
(13 February 2008)

Cooking gas crisis hitting the poor hard
Gaurav Vivek Bhatnagar, The Hindu
NEW DELHI: The poor people who depend on small refilled gas cylinders for their cooking needs these days have been hit the hardest by the acute shortage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) supply in and around Delhi. They are having to pay as much as Rs.80 per kg for the fuel -- equivalent to Rs.1,436 for a 14.2 kg cylinders -- whose real cost is only Rs.293.35.

For domestic maid Anjana, who lives in Indirapuram and works in seven households for making a living, the recent jump in the price of cooking gas has upset all the plans for saving. “We use about seven to eight kg of gas in a month and so while earlier I was spending about Rs.300 on LPG, now that amount has gone up to about Rs. 600.”

While there has officially been no increase in the price of LPG, the dealers are making the most of the crisis by creating an artificial scarcity as well. In many colonies across the National Capital Region the waiting time for gas supply in the past month has gone up to between 25 and 30 days.

But while the demand for gas did increase due to the dramatic and unexpected drop in temperature in January end and early February, the dealers and their deliverymen have exploited it systematically.
(12 February 2008)